The Minnesota Twins have seen their minor league system drastically improve since graduating a load of young players in 2014-2016. Who should fans watch this season that might be “off the radar”?
The Minnesota Twins will lean heavily on their improved minor league system over the next half-decade as they hope to keep costs low while keeping their current young major league core of players together for a long run. While top prospects that are near the majors like Nick Gordon and Stephen Gonsalves are well-known and #1 draft pick Royce Lewis is fairly well-recognized as well, who are some of the less-heralded players that Minnesota Twins fans should be watching in 2018?
We will start with a group, not an individual player, that could end up having a fairly important role in the success of the 2018 major league Minnesota Twins club…
Rochester’s bullpen
Of the Twins bullpen that was dominating in August and September, a number of them worked through the Rochester bullpen over the season, and it would be quite feasible that many will find their way to Minnesota again out of the Red Wings ‘pen.
The obvious candidates to make that jump are the guys who will open 2018 on the 40-man roster, but will not be on the major league roster. The top candidates to fall in this category would be hard throwers J.T. Chargois and John Curtiss.
Both have shown the ability to throw hard at the major league level, with upper 90s stuff. Curtiss was able to tally plenty of strikeouts in his month and a half in 2017 with the big league club. Both would offer big arms to bring up for the team in the case of injury or ineffectiveness of their initial bullpen members.
Beyond those two are a few guys returning to Rochester after playing there in 2017. Jake Reed has another power arm that showed well recovering from injury, and if he could just stay healthy, he could definitely impact the big league club.
Ryan Eades turned heads in the Arizona Fall League when placed into a reliever role rather than the swingman starter role that he was in for the 2017 season. His stuff played up, and the Twins could possibly extract some value from their 2013 2nd round pick after all, after waiting on him multiple years through injuries and other issues.
Mason Melotakis had some significant issues with variability in his arm in 2017. He would have one game where he was coming with a low-90s fastball, and another game where he was working more with a mid-90s fastball. Health fluctuations could be intriguing to watch with Melotakis, as he’s an MLB-quality lefty reliever when at full strength.
A number of relievers may not open with Rochester, but could find their way there eventually. Top prospect Tyler Jay could find himself in a dominant role as a lefty bullpen piece. Guys like Nick Anderson and Todd Van Steensel had excellent 2017 seasons that worked up to AA and could certainly be factors, as could guys who didn’t quite make the AA roster in 2017, like Sam Clay, Tom Hackimer, Alex Robinson, Michael Theofanopoulos, or Andrew Vasquez.
The essential thing to notice with all these names is clear – the Twins have a loaded system in relief pitching. It’s a theme recognized by multiple places this offseason, and fans should be keeping an eye out for who is establishing as an elite reliever in 2018 to make that jump.
Baseball America’s monthly magazine contains the American League Central top 10s, and in their top 10 list, Javier ranks #2, which is certainly the highest I’ve seen him anywhere so far. However, it would not surprise if he begins to not just get that kind of notice soon, but if he doesn’t start jumping up in the top 100 conversation very soon, if he’s not already there.
Javier was the Twins’ big money signing in July of 2015 for more money than the team even gave to Miguel Sano when they signed him. Javier has done nothing to detract from that high regard thus far in his pro career.
Just 18 for the entire season, Javier hit .299/.383/.471 with Elizabethton, playing against guys who often were coming out of college and 3-4 years his senior. In an organization that has a lot of depth at the shortstop position with the top two prospects in the organization (via most consensus) both playing the position as well in Gordon and Lewis, Javier is the guy who certainly has the best chance to stick at the position.
Javier has the offensive profile to deliver above-average power in game while he has plus speed and very good instincts as a base runner. He needs more polish as a base stealer, but the Twins won’t worry if he’s not stealing bases if he’s able to utilize his speed to get first to home well.
After Shohei Ohtani signed with the Angels, Twins fans were quite critical of the team, wondering how the team could possibly utilize their financial build up to actually improve the team’s future. Sure enough, they used the financial flexibility they had in the Ohtani bidding to turn around and sign Yunior Severino, for many the best available prospect that was removed from the Braves in their punishment in November.
Severino doesn’t have the profile of fellow 2016 signee Kevin Maitan, but he doesn’t have any reason to be discounted on his ceiling in comparison to Maitan. The Braves spent the third-most on Severino in the 2016 class, and he produced the most of any of that group by far in 2017.
Severino hit .270/.345/.420 with 25 extra base hits in just 48 games. He is likely best fit for second base going forward, and there are many who initially compared him to Robinson Cano when he was signed. When making phone calls this fall, the name that kept being thrown out as a profile is Jeff Kent – excellent power, very steady – albeit not elite – defense. I’m sure Twins fans would be very happy with that profile.
While the team has a number of players currently playing shortstop, the depth at second base is not heavy, and with starter Brian Dozier a free agent after 2018, the Twins could be utilizing young infielders at the position until someone establishes himself as the long-term answer at the position. Severino could be that guy.
Twins fans were heartbroken last spring when 2016’s top draft pick, Kirilloff, was announced as requiring Tommy John surgery. To be fair, the team had known this was a likely outcome since the previous August, but it became official on March 1st.
Kirilloff was a surprise to be sitting there for the Twins to select at #15 overall. The home-schooled kid from Pennsylvania has a father who is a hitting coach, and his father helped him to hone one of the prettiest swings in the entire draft.
Kirilloff flashed better athleticism than thought with Elizabethton as an 18 year-old, handling center field fairly well, and showing well in right field, while some had him listed as a first base only prospect coming into the draft. Coming back from elbow surgery to his throwing elbow could mean that right field will no longer be his future, however.
As an 18 year-old in the Appy League, he hit .306/.341/.454 with 7 home runs for the E-Twins, showing the type of power and contact ability that would allow him to be valuable, even if he’s forced into a life at first base. He may open the season in extended spring, based on how spring training goes for him, but how he handles any play in the outfield in 2018 will be very intriguing to watch.
Certainly thicker than the listed 155 pounds on his Baseball Reference page, Arraez is also stretching to get the listed 5’10” he has listed. There is one thing he has done his entire time with the Twins organization, and that is hit, with a .338 career batting line over 205 minor league games so far.
Arraez has very solid hands at second base and a quick release at the position, so he should be able to stick there. He did tear his ACL this past April and missed the rest of 2017.
Arraez doesn’t profile as a guy with big over-the-fence power, but he can absolutely pound the ball into the gaps on a line, racking up 52 doubles in his ~900 plate appearances in the minor leagues thus far. He’s also not likely going to steal a ton of bases as he’s more quick than fast, getting a good jump, but not with great top-end speed, so he reacts well in the field, but he’s not a guy who will range deep behind the bag or behind the first baseman to get a ball.
Arraez’s incredible contact ability should allow him to at least continue hitting well, but how he works defensively will be very important to watch this coming season as he attempts to assert himself as the guy who could take over 2B if Dozier leaves after 2018.
The Twins got Moran in the 7th round of the 2015 draft out of Puerto Rico, and he had an impressive debut in the GCL, throwing 19 2/3 innings, with a 4.12 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, and a 9/17 BB/K ratio.
However, Moran then missed the 2016 season after having bone chips removed from his elbow. As the 2017 season opened, he seemed to fall off the radar of a number of people, and it wasn’t until mid-season for Elizabethton in 2018 that people really seemed to notice how incredible his season was.
In the regular season, Moran made 11 appearances for the E-Twins, throwing 24 2/3 innings, with a 0.36 ERA, 0.73 WHIP, and an incredible 6/45 BB/K ratio. That comes out to a 50% strikeout rate on the season as he struck out 45 of the 90 batters he faced on the year.
However, if you add in his playoff performances for Elizabethton, he threw 4 perfect playoff innings with 7 strikeouts, meaning on his entire year, he had 13 appearances, 28 2/3 innings, a 0.31 ERA, 0.63 WHIP, 5.9% walk rate, and a 51% strikeout rate.
Moran works from the left side with a high 3/4 arm slot, throwing a fastball with a ton of spin that he can manipulate in a bunch of ways, working in the low-90s mostly, but never really moving the same way twice in a plate appearance. He has a breaking pitch that was slurvy coming out of high school, and he’s shown more of a hard break to the pitch, throwing it as a hard curve.
It’s still unclear whether the Twins will progress with Moran in the bullpen or as a starter, but with an arm that can get swings at that rate, he could have a ton of success in either role if he can just get a “show me” change over as a starter.
Along with Javier, the other young Twins prospect getting a ton of love this offseason is Graterol. Just as Moran hails from a Twins focus in Puerto Rico, Graterol hails from the other Twins Latin focus in Venezuela, a signee in 2014 for $150,000.
Graterol had a raw arm with potential before he popped his elbow after just four 2015 appearances, and the Twins allowed him a slow rehab to come back. Topping out just under 90 before his surgery, Graterol was pounding out triple digit pitches in spring training.
That was just a sign of things to come, as Graterol had really worked on his physical development, going from a skinny, undeveloped kid to a hulking 18 year-old when he showed up for spring in 2017.
The Twins gave him time between starts and kept his arm to a low load in 2018, but he was able to show incredibly well with 10 appearances, 7 of them starts, throwing 40 innings. He totaled a 2.70 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, and a 13/45 BB/K ratio over that time across GCL and Elizabethton.
Graterol works with his double-plus fastball, a hard slider that can run up to 90 MPH, a hard curve around 80, and a change that works in the mid-80s. Having four distinct velocity ranges in his pitches allows for four looks for Graterol on the mound.
He’ll likely open 2018 on the hill for Cedar Rapids, but he’s likely to have an innings progression plan from the organization to ensure arm health. Graterol is certainly the highest-upside pitching prospect in the Twins system, and by the end of the season, he could be a sure-fire top 100 pick – likely he’ll make a couple lists even this offseason!
While not all of these guys will contribute at the major league level for the Twins in 2018, they each could hold a piece of the future, so they’re worth keeping an eye out this coming season!
